Owner of slain dogs grateful for verdict

Shortly after a Common Pleas Court returned a verdict of guilty in a widely watched trial last week involving the fatal shooting of two dogs in West Vincent, the owner of the pets declared his family grateful for the decision.

“It is finally closure for our family, and a chance to put it behind us once and for all,” said William Bock of Chester Springs outside the courtroom where the three-day trial took place.

But for Gabriel Pilotti, the 73-year-old defendant who the jury found guilty of two counts of cruelty to animals, the ordeal will continue.

Senior Judge Ronald Nagle, who presided over the criminal trial, set sentencing in the case for Oct. 28. The punishment could be severe for a man of Pilotti’s age and reputation. Pilotti, a well-regarded man in the general West Vincent community with no prior criminal history, ironically was hailed by his neighbors as a hero just 16 months ago for a similar action.

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Attorneys in the Chester County Justice Center who are familiar with the case but who asked not to be identified because they were not a party to the prosecution, said that there is a very real chance that Pilotti will face a prison term for his crimes, even though he was reportedly offered a sentence of probation in the months preceding he trial.

Attorney Thomas H. Ramsay of West Chester, who represented Pilotti form shortly after his arrest to his trial in gale’s courtroom, said prior to the trial that his client had turned down the prosecution’s offer of probation because at his age he did not want to be tarnished with a criminal conviction. In addition, Pilotti maintains to this day that what he did in shooting the two Bernese mountain dogs — 2-year-old Argus and 1-year-old Fiona — that he came upon in the backyard pasture where he raised sheep was not criminal.

The process the two sides — Ramsay for the defense and Assistant District Attorney Kevin Pierce, who prosecuted the case – will go through in making recommendations to Nagle on his sentence sheds some light on the manner in which sentences are arrived in Pennsylvania criminal cases.

Ramsay could not be reached for comment on the case Friday; Pierce has declined comment on the matter pending the sentencing.

The charge Pilotti was convicted of, cruelty to animals, is a first-degree misdemeanor that carries with it a maximum penalty of 2½ to five years in prison. But judges who impose sentences are guided by that only as a limitation on how much time in prison a defendant can receive, or how much probation they can get.

Sentences are based on a matrix of guidelines adopted by the state Sentencing Commission. In Pilotti’s case, the seriousness of the offense is graded as a three; first-degree murder, by comparison, carries with it an offense gravity score of 14. Because his has a prior record score of zero, the recommended sentence for his conviction would normally be a minimum of probation and a maximum of one-months in county prison.

But because Pilotti used a gun in the case — a single barreled 20-gauge shotgun he kept in his garage – Pierce is likely to argue that the guidelines’ “deadly weapon used” enhancement provision applies, ratcheting up the penalty to six to seven months in county prison. Nagle could add to that amount of time or subtract from it by three months in either direction if he found aggravating or mitigating factors — the impact on the victims of the crime for the former, for example, or the age of the defendant for the latter — but would have to enumerate those for the record.

In addition, because there were two separate victims in the case — Argus, the male, and Fiona, the female – Nagle has the option of running the sentences on each charge consecutively. Theoretically, if Nagle sentenced Pilotti to six to 12 months on each charge and ran them back to back, the total sentence would be 12 to 24 months in prison. That sentence, by law, must be served at a state correctional facility, such as Graterford State Prison in Montgomery County.

On the other hand, one attorney familiar with the case said that Pierce could conceivably recommend that Nagle impose a mitigated sentence of three to six months in county prison — in deference to Pilotti’s age and his lack of any criminal history — but ask that they be run consecutively, this securing a minimum sentence of six months behind bars. The attorney said Ramsay would have a difficult time arguing that Pilotti deserves a sentence below even that of the mitigated range.

Whatever the ultimate sentence is, because he was found guilty of a first-degree misdemeanor Pilotti will lose the right to own or possess firearms, and will have to turn over the shotgun used to police.

The case began in the late morning of Feb. 12, when Pilotti arrived home from his job at a FedEx facility in Montgomery County. He went to his kitchen looked out a rear window, and saw a large black dog near one of his sheep, a ewe, and her lamb.

According to testimony in the case, Pilotti immediately thought of an earlier incident in May 2012 when he saw two pits bulls in his pasture that were attacking sheep there. He got his shotgun, confronted the raging dogs, and shot them both dead. But they had killed six sheep in the neighborhood, as well as an alpaca, and wounded five others, including one of Pilotti’s flock.

Pilotti, who referred to himself as a dedicated shepherd during his testimony on Tuesday, again retrieved his shotgun and went to the pasture. There, he spotted another dog, which Pilotti said had cornered several other ewes and their young lambs outside a small barn on the property. Standing at a fence, he pointed the shotgun at the first dog and fired a single round of “double-ought” buckshot into its head. Argus was killed instantly.

Hearing the gunshot, the second dog began running away from the barn. Pilotti reloaded his gun, aimed at the second dog as she ran away, and fired. The shot hit Fiona in the head, and she collapsed dead a few feet from where she was hit.

The dogs were pets of William and Mary Bock and their eight children, and had escaped through a hole in a fence surrounding their home on a street near Pilotti’s home. Although he was initially cleared by police of any wrongdoing, a further review of the matter led to the criminal charges being filed on Feb. 23.

Pilotti, though Ramsay, contended that two dogs were chasing or pursuing his flock and that under provisions of the state’s Dog Law he was permitted to kill them without liability. Pierce, on the other hand, argued that the evidence showed that the dogs were not chasing the sheep when Pilotti confronted them, and that the livestock had not been harmed.

The jury, after 4½ hours of deliberation on Wednesday, rejected Pilotti’s contention. He left the courtroom with members of his family who had gathered in the courtroom for support in tow.